Mulligans: What's Joe Barton got against pigtails?

By
Dana Milbank

Dim bulb? Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), the lawmaker who apologized to BP during the oil spill, is now making apologies for incandescent light bulbs. The incoming chairman of the House Commerce committee vows to fight efforts to replace the bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, which Barton labels "the little, squiggly, pig-tailed ones."

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Don't tire-tread on me. Virginia was for lovers. Now it's for the cold-blooded -- specifically, the reptile that will appear on a new license plate if a Tea Party effort prevails. Tea Party-backed legislation has been filed in the assembly to create a license plate with a coiled snake and the words "Don't Tread on Me."

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Who's afraid of Mama Grizzly? Not Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). The New England moderate says of Sarah Palin: "It's a lot easier to charge people up than to actually govern." She also says Sen.-elect Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) is joining or "Mod Squad." That's "mod" as in "moderates," not Christopher Buckley's "Merchants of Death." Her Maine Republican colleague, Sen. Olympia Snowe, probably won't be so cheeky: She's up for reelection in 2012.

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Hanging chads, hanging immigrants. Florida doesn't have a high-profile recount this year, but its resourceful residents are still finding ways to entertain the nation. A spokesman for Gov.-elect Rick Scott acknowledges that his campaign paid one of its staffers with gift cards instead of a paycheck. But Scott will have to do better than that if he wants to top congressman-elect Allen West. The Republican hired as his chief of staff a talk-radio host who reportedly said that if an illegal immigrant commits a crime, "we should hang you and send your body back to where you came from, and your family should pay for it."

Dana! You've had so many mulligans lately I'm afraid they're becoming malignant. I know a good colonoscopist, Dr. Petri, who is an expert at removing mulliganomas. Please schedule an appointment soon before they metastasize and turn your liver into hummus.

OK, Joe Barton may not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I agree with him here. When I dressed my 5-year old son in his "squiggly little pig-tail" costume for Halloween, I got thrown out of the PTA. But now I see the (pure white) light.

In Oregon, they have a license plate you can get with a salmon on it. So I'm not rattled by Virginia putting out their "Snake" license plate. I suspect that current owners of the Virginia "Mongoose" license plate will also approve. (Rattlesnakes taste like chicken. Get it?)

I'm ignoring your Alaskan mulligan, hoping she'll go away.

Finally, I recommend that if the state of Florida wants any tourists from Chad to hang around, they offer them gift cards.

And finally, one more thing. While Googling myself this morning, I came across this description of frontal lobe something or another:

"The disinhibited behavior may result in childish excitement or joking or PATHOLOGICAL PUNNING [emphasis emphasized] in addition to sexual indiscretion and exhibitionism. The incontinence is commonly associated with lack of concern and social awareness."

The Wapo newsroom sounds like a really fun place! Do you mind if I come by and hang around a little? I'll bring the diapers.

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